


The Pain We All Share

by effected



Category: BBC Merlin, Merlin (TV)
Genre: BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Magic Revealed, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Scar reveal, Scars, Sorry Not Sorry, Yet another scar reveal fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28355154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effected/pseuds/effected
Summary: Merlin didn't know how they kept ending up in this situation. What did the sorcerer want this time? For all of them to feel the pain of each's worst injury.---Or yet another Merlin scar/magic reveal fic
Relationships: Gwaine/Merlin (Merlin), Lancelot/Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 371





	The Pain We All Share

**Author's Note:**

> This types of stories are really fun to write so enjoy!

Merlin had no idea how they ended up in this situation, again. Seriously, if there was ever a week that Arthur and his little trope of knights didn’t end up in a life-threatening situation, Merlin might die from a heart attack. What was it this time? A sorcerer, who decided to kidnap us while we were all sleeping, thank you very much. Well, all of us but Elyan were sleeping. Elyan got the luxury of being knocked out with a spell. 

The sorcerer wasn’t that powerful, or else Merlin would have woken up when he got close. Merlin wasn’t even able to sense his power and could easily break everyone out and take down the sorcerer by himself. But, as always, he couldn’t. Not until it was absolutely necessary, at least; or if he could do it without revealing himself. 

So Merlin was stuck hearing the knights around him bicker about some plan to break them out that would never work in a million years, but they would never give up without trying first. It was seriously annoying sometimes. Merlin, on the other hand, was wondering what the hell this guy wanted with them. It could be information, but then one of them would have been taken by now to get tortured. If he wanted to kill Arthur and take over Camelot, he wouldn’t have gone through the hassle of taking a handful of knights and a serving boy to a secondary location. The most likely reason was money at this point; there was no other logical explanation why they were all here for so long, relatively unharmed. 

After what felt like hours, the sorcerer finally walked back into the room. They had the normal conversation of “What do you want from us” and blah blah. Merlin had heard it all at this point. The sorcerer denied the fact that he wanted the kingdom or information or even money, which surprised Merlin, wondering what else there was. 

“So then what the hell  _ do  _ you want?” Arthur asked, obviously getting annoyed. 

“Pain,” the sorcerer replied, before starting a spell Merlin had never heard before, which was rare, considering how many spell books he had read and how many sorcerers he had fought. He was trying to work out some of the words, but felt his eyes starting to drop. A couple more seconds and everyone was knocked out cold. 

* * *

When they woke up, they were in the Camelot throne room. The sorcerer was looking at all of them, and he had obviously been waiting for them to awaken. 

“Where are we?” Lancelot asked. 

“You don’t recognize this place? I tried to pick somewhere familiar to you all,” the sorcerer responded.

“Well obviously I know that this is supposed to look like the Camelot throne room, but it’s not,” Lancelot responded, getting confused looks from the rest of the group. “This looks nothing like what the throne room currently looks like.” That’s when everyone noticed what he was talking about. The throne room had recently changed out its decorations and got new marble window sills, which this room did not have. They were impressed with Lancelot for figuring it out so quickly. 

“I suppose you’re probably correct. My apologies, I have not been to Camelot for a while.”

Arthur was getting tired of this man’s games. “Where are we really? And what do you want with us?”

“I’ve told you, your pain.”

“And that means?”

“You all are going to go through some of the worst pains you’ve ever felt. The spell I’ve enchanted forces each of you to endure the worst pain each person in this room has ever felt. It shall start with the least painful and work its way up.” Everyone in the room glanced at each other nervously, trying to figure out what their worst injury was and in which order they would need to face it. They knew it would be better if they had more painful injuries, knowing they could overcome the pain from injuries from others, but no one really wanted to do this. “Enjoy!”

And with that, they all passed out again. 

* * *

Most of the knights expected Merlin to be first. After all, he was only a servant whilst the rest of them were knights. However, it was Elyan that came first. His wound was when he was still learning the art of blacksmithing from his father. He wasn’t really paying attention and accidentally stabbed his hand with one of the swords his father had just finished. In his surprise, he stepped back and put his hand on one of the blistering hot swords his father was still making, burning his other hand. 

Everyone felt the pain as they watched the scene unfold. It hurt, a lot. They were all dreading what was coming next if this was the one classified as “least painful.” Elyan wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it. 

Merlin, on the other hand, barely felt anything. He was scared for when his turn would come. Merlin knew that his would be most painful out of all of them, but he didn’t know whether it would be the serket sting, dorocha, the fireball, or maybe something else he had forgotten all together. 

* * *

Next up was Lancelot. He never had too much of a difficult childhood. And while he trained for most of his life to become a knight, he had never really experienced fighting as a knight would until he came to Camelot. Even then, his most painful injury was while he was still on his own. He was camping out by himself when a group of bandits charged out at him. Thankfully, it wasn’t too large of a group, with only three people, but it was still hard to fight them all off himself. When he had killed the second bandit, the last one managed to get a hit in, lodging his sword in Lancelot’s arm. Lancelot turned around and stabbed him in the heart, but the pain in his arm was seemingly unbearable. 

The knights, once again, felt large amounts of pain. 

* * *

Surprisingly, Percival was up next. Turns out he’s really good at not getting many painful injuries. His was of the time the ax fell on his shoulder. That hurt. It at first felt as if the entire arm had been cut off. Then it went down the smallest amount to a constant ringing of pain that could never be forgotten. 

* * *

Merlin was confused. The next memory they saw was his. Remember the time when that bandit hit his chest with the mace and he later got kidnapped by Morgana and was forced to try and kill Arthur so he had to go out and fight Morgana to get control of his own body again only to come back to Arthur thinking he had been in the tavern the entire time? Merlin sure did. Thankfully, the memory only showed the part of him actually getting hit, and none of that other stuff.

Arthur winced not only at the pain, but at the memory. Seeing Merlin on the ground like that and then later losing him behind a rockfall is not something he would want to do again, 

Merlin didn’t know what to think. He knew this wasn’t one of his more painful injuries. Far from it, in fact. It measured around the same as the arrow did, when he and Finna were trying to get away. Perhaps this sorcerer wanted Merlin’s secret to be kept. Merlin knew that probably wasn’t the case, but it was okay to hope. 

* * *

Leon was not looking forward to his. He knew his most painful injury was when the Druids had to revive him with the Cup of Life. The knights saw the aftermath, but they weren’t actually there for the battle. It was traumatizing, to say the least, to see Camelot’s best knights cut down like they were nothing. It hurt even more when Leon was the one to be cut down. They weren’t sure how much more they could take. 

* * *

The first thing their small group noticed when they woke up was the feeling of being kicked, over and over again. When they opened their eyes, they saw a small Gwaine being beaten to the ground by a large group of teenagers. They wouldn’t stop. It went on and on and on, even after Gwaine had begged for them to stop. They could feel their ribs breaking and blood flowing out of their mouths. 

Merlin tried to look at Gwaine, to comfort him if nothing else, but he wouldn’t meet his gaze. 

* * *

Seemingly last, and anything but least, was Arthur and the time he got bit by a questing beast. The pain was worse than they could imagine, and worse than Arthur remembered. Probably because he had been knocked out for most of the time. The worst part, however, wasn’t from the bite. It was from the poison that came after, not letting Arthur go away peacefully. 

All the knights were recoiling from the pain all over. Before they passed out again, they thanked whatever gods there were that this was the final one.

* * *

They woke up again in the throne room. They could still feel the pain and none of them could quite get it to stop, except for Merlin. He couldn’t really get it to stop, but he was able to move past it, due to past experience with pain. 

“Why are we still here? We did what you wanted.”

“That’s because this is still not over.” 

“Everyone went through their most painful injury, what else do you want?”

_ I think you know, Emrys.  _

_ You know who I am? _

_ Of course, I am a druid after all.  _

_ Why are you doing this? _

_ I was bored and needed some entertainment. This should prove well enough.  _

By the time Merlin and the druid had finished their mind conversation, Arthur had gotten up; he had experienced this before after all. “My servant is right.”

“Oh, but he is not, and he knows it. There is one here who has not gone through their most painful injury.”

“What are you talking about? We saw a memory from each person.”

“Yes, but one was not the worst.” Arthur didn’t know what to think. All of the injuries had seemed pretty painful. By this time, the rest of the knights were up again as the pain had slowly subsided. They had heard the last part and were looking around at each other, trying to figure out who had something more painful to go through. Merlin did nothing but stare at the man. 

“However, the one with the most painful injury happens to have four that outweigh the next person’s. Seeing as it would be unfair to put all of you through that, I give the man a choice to pick which injury you should all experience. Then he himself will have to go through the rest of them by himself.”

“Who is it?” Leon asked. Lancelot knew the answer. He looked over at his friend with a sad face, feeling terrible for what he was going to have to go through.

“It is him.” The druid pointed at Merlin.

“ _ Merlin? _ ” Arthur exclaimed, surprised that Merlin had any painful injuries, set aside the four that outweighed his. “But he’s just a servant?”

“Oh he is much more than that.”

_ Is there any way at all you will let us go? _

_ No, Emrys. You’re fate is sealed.  _

Merlin started searching through his brain to find a way to counteract the spell and stop it before it had begun, but the man knew what he was doing.  _ Do not even attempt to stop the spell. I may not be a powerful sorcerer like you, but once this spell is in motion, it cannot be stopped.  _

Merlin decided it in his best interest to listen, in case him attempting anything resulted in his friends having to experience the same pain as him. 

“So, Merlin, choose the injury your friends will have to experience, and we will get started.”

_ Will you at least tell me what they are? _

_ Ah, of course. Your options are the fireball, serket sting, dorocha attack, or poisoning.  _

Merlin had no idea what to pick. The dorocha and serket were more painful than any of his friends would be able to handle, so they were off the table. He racked his mind trying to think of which one was less painful out of the fireball versus poisoning, but they had both happened so long ago. 

“Tick, tock, Merlin. Choose, or I will choose for you.”

Merlin knew he couldn’t let that happen. “They can experience the poison.”

* * *

Merlin wasn’t sure if that was the right choice. He supposed he said it because it was the only one that his friends actually knew about. Either way, the poison came first. The only ones that were present for it happening were Arthur and Leon. They had both assumed that the poison wasn’t actually painful, which was why the mace was Merlin’s most painful injury, but boy were they wrong. 

The poison was the worst pain they could comprehend. The pain rippled through their entire bodies, overwhelming them. Arthur looked over at Merlin, who looked as if this was nothing but a stroll in the town. That confused him more than anything. 

By the time it ended, the man had showed up again. “I sure hoped you picked this one, Merlin, because this is a double one.” Merlin mentally cursed himself. He had completely forgot about the time Morgana had poisoned him after Daegel had led him out. That was way worse than this one. 

The memory spent no time changing. Before they knew it they felt the pain of being slammed back into a tree. They barely recognized the liquid being poured into Merlin’s mouth, but they knew it could be no good, especially if it was Morgana who was pouring it. Then Merlin was kicked off the side of the cliff, which in itself hurt more than some of the other injuries they experienced today, but that wasn’t even the start of it. 

Then the actual pain started. The feeling of your insides burning and your blood boiling is something none of them would wish even on their worst enemies. 

* * *

The knights still couldn’t believe Merlin had gone through that, alone. They also couldn’t believe that he had three more injuries to go. Knowing Merlin, he thought that that was the lesser of the pains, making them terrified to see what would come next. 

Merlin, on the other hand, knew this was where his magic would be exposed. He recognized the Isle of the Blessed and knew this was the fireball attack. The memory didn’t show much foreplay or afterplay, which Merlin was immensely thankful for, meaning all his friends saw was Nimueh hurling the fireball at him. 

They could only imagine how much that must have hurt, but Merlin didn’t even really seem phased by it. It did hurt more now that it did the first time, but he supposed that was because he was so angry at Nimueh at the time, fueling his power. 

None of them knew why Merlin was fighting Nimueh or how he had survived a fight with her, especially after that fireball. 

* * *

The next was the dorocha attack. Most of them had tried their hardest to forget about this. It was hard seeing someone they saw as their little brother like that, almost dead. This was the first injury that really phased Merlin. It hurt just as much as he remembered it. It felt as if his soul was being ripped from his body, but stopped halfway, before freezing everything in place. He dropped to his knees, then to the floor. 

Lancelot and Arthur rushed forward, although they weren’t quite sure what to do to help. Last time they at least felt like they were doing something by warming him up, but this wasn’t anything like that. There wasn’t anything to do to stop it. 

* * *

Merlin was not excited for the last one. This one was the worst injury he’d ever felt. On top of that, he had visibly used magic to try and get free in this memory, along with calling Kilgharrah. 

The knights watched in silence, at first seeing the serkets surrounding Merlin, worried for him, even though they knew he’d survive. Then they saw his eyes turn gold, and they all had mixed emotions. Especially Arthur. A serket stung Merlin’s back, and the present Merlin fell onto the floor once again. Memory Merlin called the dragon as the memory faded away, leaving Merlin writhing on the ground in pain. 

For some reason, his body didn’t want to pass out this time, which he hated it for. Lancelot was back at his side, not phased by what he just saw, like all the other knights. Gwaine was soon next to him, after realizing that this was  _ Merlin  _ for gods’ sake. The only reason Gwaine ever came to Camelot or became a knight was for that idiot. 

The rest of the knights stayed back. With the exception of possibly Leon, they didn’t truly care if Merlin had magic or not. Arthur, however, was furious. Not so much the fact that he had magic, but the fact that he had hid it this entire time; the fact that he had been able to hide it. How many times had Arthur blamed Merlin for doing something when he was probably protecting Camelot? Sure, at first he wondered if Merlin was evil, like so many sorcerers he had seen before, but there was no way. Merlin would have struck long before now if he was ever planning to. 

Either way, everyone hated the way Merlin was curled into himself, trying desperately to get away from the pain anyway he could.

* * *

When Merlin woke, everyone was staring down at him. They were outside, in the forest, early morning, meaning it had obviously been a while since Merlin had been awake.

From the looks on everyone’s faces, obviously a lot had gone on while he was asleep. 

“Look who’s finally awake,” Arthur said.

“Arthur, I-” Merlin started, wanting to explain himself. 

“Merlin, don’t. Lancelot told us all that he knows. It’s your turn, I want to know it all.”

“Does this mean you’re not going to kill me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed. It was a little bit of a mess but I felt an urge to write so thus was created.


End file.
